“After the procedure he did, he couldn’t speak and was lying in the bed,” his father, Willie Nelson, told the news outlet. “His eyes were open and he realized who we were. But he couldn’t move. He never spoke again.”

“We really don’t know the full story of what happened,” he added. “We were expecting him to come out of the coma he was in. But he didn’t make it.”

His fiancée, Sheronda Braker, told CNN that he “was a tremendous father to our beloved daughter Morgan and the best companion and life partner I could have ever asked for.”

“He loved his family almost beyond belief. He was a man who carried himself with dignity, courage and compassion,” she continued. “His last kind and generous act on this earth in giving so someone else might live is a true testament to who he was and how he should always be remembered. We will always love him.”

Shelley Brindle, the mayor of Westfield, wrote on Facebook that “this is a tremendous loss for our community, and I know that our children, and we as parents, will struggle with coming to terms with this over the coming days and weeks.”

Junior Daniel Peterson told CBS that Nelson “was very easy to talk to and he pushed family values at assemblies or saw you in the hall. Now that he’s gone, it feels like part of the community is gone.”